Growing Up Casey
by akspick
Summary: Orion's self sacrificing plan to abandon his family didn't work out as well as he thought it would. The CIA barges in as usual, and sends Ellie off to college, leaving Chuck alone with his body guard. One John Casey, who hates Chuck's geeky teenage guts. And Unfortunately for Chuck, this time Casey is in a position to do something about it. (Standard disclaimer: I don't own it.)
1. Chapter 1

It had been exactly a week since everything in Charles Irving Bartowski's life had decided it wanted to go completely batshit crazy. Seven days ago, Charles who went by Chuck had gone to school and come home to find that his father had gone A.W.O.L. Chuck's Father's study had been cleared out and his clothes were all gone. It had taken another two days for Chuck and his sister Ellie to believe their father wasn't coming back. They had spent another day frantically trying to get hold of him, calling ever single place he could possibly be and then calling in a missing persons report. Then the day after that had come the social workers and the paperwork, and the worried neighbors. Morgan Grimes, Chuck's best friend had come over with his mother, and the dear Mrs. Grimes had been fending the other overly sympathetic mother off with her fiery latin temper all day. The day after that had been the lawyers and the banks. Ellie would be turning eighteen in only a couple months and was trying to convince them she was eighteen now. This wasn't terribly difficult as she had really been taking care of everything since their Mom left anyway.

Through that entire thing Chuck and Ellie had been sticking closer than glue, nearly clutching each other in desperation, and then the army had shown up. Well they weren't really the army, but they were something, something with sun glasses and guns and big stomping boots. They had come in this morning taking over everything, crashing in the door and past Mrs. Grimes with badges flashing towards their father's study, and now some how Chuck was sitting in a room some where in some federal building with beige walls, a plastic chair and a flat soda, with a backpack full of clothes at his feet and separate from his sister. Ellie was somewhere in some other beige room being talked to seriously about her _future_, yay, but most importantly she was not with Chuck. And fourteen year old Chuck Bartowski sat in his plastic chair with his flat soda and he cried, because his sister wasn't there to see him.

"Ah, geez kid. Waterworks really?" Chuck looked up at the gruff voice to see a man maybe a couple years younger than his Dad, about thirty of so, standing in the doorway. He was thick set, but not heavy, with a broad jaw, and light hair. Dressed in some kind of commando uniform with a big gun strapped across his chest. Chuck's brain vaguely recognized the gun from a video game, but it didn't really register.

"What do you want?" It came out whinier and meaner than Chuck would have liked, but he didn't really care anymore.

"Get up, I'm here to escort you." The man ordered, in his gruff voice, gesturing with the butt of his gun, pointed towards the floor.

"I guess someone had their testosterone for breakfast this morning." Chuck muttered under his breath, grabbing his bag and sliding carefully passed the man in the doorframe, only to get grabbed by his skinny upper arm and towed. Chuck tried struggling but it was no use. He was tall, but he was still skinny as a toothpick, and this man was built like a tree trunk.

Chuck ended up sitting next to his sister in a conference room again, so he supposed he didn't really mind getting towed around like a piece of luggage. Finally once everyone was settled at the table, mostly military men with a few scientists sprinkled in, and Mr. Tall, dark and tree like planted with his gun at the door the meeting began.

Turns out Chuck's Dad wasn't as paranoid as they thought. After all it's not really paranoia when people are actually out to get you. In fact he was so good at hiding it was a miracle they had found Chuck and Ellie somehow. They didn't tell Chuck much, but he got the impression they had told Ellie more earlier, especially when she started going along with all their decisions. Including the one where they were selling the house, and Chuck was moving in with a bodyguard.

"What! No I'm not! Ellie tell them." Chuck yelled, jumping from his chair and motioning frantically at his sister.

"I'm sorry Chuck, but I think it's for the best. What if someone looking for Dad comes looking at the house, and I was leaving in the fall for school anyway."

"Yeah, but that was when Dad was here, I thought, I thought we said yesterday that you were going to stay and commute or something, please Ellie we could find an apartment closer to UCLA. I, just, don't leave me alone Ellie." Ellie wavered for a moment, she didn't want to leave her brother either, but one of the heavily medaled men sitting around the table broke in.

"Ms. Bartowski, it would be better if we separated you and your brother. If someone comes looking for you, a teenage girl taking care of her teenage brother alone would raise a lot more attention, than a co-ed who occasionally visits her brother and her uncle. There is also the matter of your education. Managing a household would place a lot of undue stress on someone who wants to get into med-school."

"I-"

"Ms. Bartowski, rest assured your brother would be fully taken care of and you could visit as much as you like."

"If you think it's for the best." Ellie nodded, twisting her fingers. Than turned to Chuck, "I'm sorry, Chuck, I know you don't want this, but they can take care of things, and I'm just not sure I'm ready for the responsibility yet." Chuck paused, and guilt overcame him. Ellie had been taking care of almost everything since their mom died, she was only seventeen and she wanted to be a doctor so badly, she shouldn't have to take care of him too. Reluctantly he nodded.

Chuck spent the rest of the meeting in a bit of a daze. Ellie taking the lead. They discussed a bunch of other stuff, mostly practical. He only perked up once his name and bodyguard were mentioned. Turns out Mr. Tall, dark and Tree Like with the gruff voice in the hall had a name. Captain Casey. And Captain Casey was to be his new bodyguard. Captain Casey moved him from the conference room as the meeting continued and he found himself in a beige room with a cot this time.

"Hey, Two bit." Chuck looked up when Mr. Tall, Dark-, Captain Casey spoke.

"Yeah?"

"Try and get some sleep. You're gonna need it."

"Thanks." Chuck replied sarcastically, but did as the man said anyway. Legs hanging off the cot, shoes still on.

Things moved fast after that. Chuck and Ellie only had about an hour in the house to pack up the things that they wanted and then the movers were coming in to pack up and store away the house in some remote facility somewhere. Chuck had really only stopped to grab a few things. His schoolbooks, his computer and despite the fact that he almost wanted to destroy it out of spite, his Tron poster. A few odds and ends were stuffed in there too, but that was really all he needed. Ellie brought a lot more, pretty much everything she would need for her dorm room, and her bicycle. And then that was it. They were on the 5 and _Captain, _as he insisted he be called, Casey was driving them to an old apartment building in Echo Park. It was a beautiful Spanish style building, but it could use a lot of work*. Ellie was only going to be staying for a day or two before moving into the dorms. The G-men had worked their magic and gotten her in early to take summer classes.

Which was why there was no one to hear two days latter, when Chuck screeched a rather girly scream at being woken up at five-thirty in the morning by a splash of water on his face.

"Get up, Numbnuts."

"What the hell! I only went to bed an hour ago!"

"Too bad. No punk I have to take care of isn't going to know how defend himself."

Chuck rolled over, "I don't need to defend myself, I have you." He muttered into his pillow. Dark hair, flopping over his eyes. "Go away"

"Yes but I'm not around all the time punk. Unless you want me following you to the bathroom. And I can barely stand the sight of your pasty white ass as it is. So up." And dragged Chuck up by his hair. Chuck flailed franticly. "This hair has got to go too."

"What!" Chuck squeaked again, socked feet sliding against the hardwood, like he was dancing a jig. "Can't we, like, talk about this or something."

"No. If I have to look at your ugly mug every day, I won't be looking at a scroungy one."

Three hours latter Chuck was puking in a trash can red as a beet, and sweat dripping from his brow. Head shaved to within an inch of its life.

"Common, wimp, that was only mile three."

"I can't. Please don't make me do this any more. Please."

"Alright on to pushups then." Chuck turned and puked again.

That night after a hearty dinner of protein shake and tofu, and a fascinating fifteen minutes of watching the Captain trim a bonsai tree, Chuck retreated to his room gave in and called Ellie. He wanted out.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Ellie."

"Chuck! I'm so glad you called. I had the best day. College is amazing!" Chuck's words died on his tongue.

"Oh, um, really?"

"Yeah, My roommates are great, and the foods not half bad! Oh sorry, I'm blithering on. Did you have something you wanted to talk about?"

"Hmm, me? Oh, nothing, nothing. Tell me more about school." And Chuck listened to his sister buzz, and did a very un-Chuck like thing. He buried his feelings deep deep in a tiny ball inside of himself.

And then Chuck woke up at 5:30 in the morning the next day and did it all over again. Except that night he called Morgan instead, and then he broke down. Well broke down, isn't really the right word. More like whined and complained to his hearts content. The second day hadn't been as bad as the first, he wasn't sleep deprived or starving for one, and for the other he had got his computer set up and spent the afternoon playing games. He wasn't going to truly complain either. He didn't want word getting back to Ellie when she was so happy. He didn't want to ruin things for her.

* * *

*Remember kids. It's the 90's, Hollywood, Echo park and everything over in that part of east-ish L.A. is pretty bad territory. Parts of still are. Definitely not as nice as in the show.

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	2. Chapter 2

**Five Weeks Later 5:30 in the morning**

"I'm up" Chuck mumbled at the knock on his door.

"Five Minutes, Solider!" Yelled Casey back, and was rewarded with a thump of 115 pounds of teenage boy falling out of bed. Hmm that reminded him they still needed to get Chuck's weight up. Kid was fifteen and nearly six feet tall already, and still skinny as a board.

Chuck managed to get his sleepy self out the back door and in running shoes in just under five minutes, only to be greeted by a the scowling face of his guardian already waiting for him.

"Hmmph, slower than yesterday kid."

"It was under 5 minutes." Chuck protested, as they set off running."

"And it'll stay that way if you want to start defense training today."

"I'm starting defense training! What're we gonna start with? A little kung-fu? Maybe some, ka-ra-te? This is gonna be awesome." Chuck hopped in excitement.

It was not awesome, and Chuck ended up planted on the couch with an ice pack across his face.

"Adorable." Snorted Casey as he walked by, eating yogurt.

"That hurt, you know." Chuck sulked.

"So duck next time." Chuck did, but that didn't stop Mrs. Grimes from seeing the huge bruise on his face when she took him and Morgan school shopping two days later. Or to take him aside privately and ask if Mr. Casey was treating him alright.

"Yeah just fine, Mrs. Grimes."

"Are you sure, mi nino? That looks and awful lot like it's from a fist."

"It is, but not from Mr. Casey. Um, don't tell Morgan but I got in a fight."

"A fight, I knew that neighborhood was no good. I don't know why you had to sell that house. Well no matter, in a few days you'll be back at school and away from those boys. Everything will be better then"

"Yeah, it should be better by then."

"Alright, but if Mr. Casey ever gives you any trouble, you call me right away. Comprende?"

"Yes, Mrs. Grimes."

School was not as Mrs. Grimes predicted, in fact it was a little strange. He hadn't had to change schools despite the move, and although it was a long drive on the 5 when traffic was bad, he was grateful to stay at the same school. Maybe it was just that he'd grown a few inches and bulked up a little bit, but it all just seemed off somehow. It was so strange to get up early, even earlier than he got up in the summer, and run, and train, only to get to school and be so worried about stupid little things. He and Morgan still hung out all the time, and he definitely wasn't given video games up, and there were a dozen computer projects he was working on, but it all seemed kind of dumb to have your life's sole ambition be to make video games when people were out saving lives. His sister wanted to save lives for a living. The Captain as he called Casey, usually out of Casey's earshot was already saving lives for a living at the risk of his own.

In fact Casey had given up everything in that service. Usually they didn't talk much, mostly just insults, but Casey wasn't opposed to shooting a few Zombies or Nazis every once in a while, and while doing so had some pretty snarly war stories, which put the zombies to shame, and made Chuck's high school problems pretty petty.

Then there was the one time Casey had come home drunk from a mission, which required it, and Chuck had heard the story of how Casey's fiancé thought he was dead. That had shifted Chuck's opinion of the man about a dozen paradigms over, and though he had wanted to pry and push in the hope of a happy ending he hadn't and in fact never brought the story up again. He wasn't entirely sure Casey even remembered telling him it.

Chuck also watched what Casey did a great deal. Casey preferred to keep Chuck in his sights, and just because he was guarding Chuck, didn't mean he stopped working on other things. Chuck watched Casey save the world, and then one day he helped. It turned out his computer skills weren't completely useless.

"Hiya Casey, watcha working on." Chuck said with his usual unrelenting optimism. His backpack found its way to the usual spot on the kitchen table, and Chuck stuck his head into the fridge fishing for orange juice.

"Nothing that concerns you, dipstick." Casey continued, eyes fixed on his computer. As this was Casey's usual answer, Chuck just shrugged and went back to his usual snack, and Captain watching.

Except something was wrong with the Captain. He was sweating, and he wasn't grumbling. The Captain always grumbled when he worked, and now he was deadly silent. Then things got loud, alarms started going off, and there was shouting, mostly into his phone. Shouting that Chuck understood. Computer language shouting, and so when the shouting carried into the other room, where the other computer was, Chuck got up and walked around the table to the laptop.

"Holly Shit!" This was serious. National security serious, someone was trying to hack a database. Chuck cracked his fingers and got to work.

"What in the hell do you think your doing Bartowski?" Uh-oh, Chuck only got called Bartowski when he was in serious trouble.

"Fixing the problem." Chuck commented, not even glancing up from his keyboard.

"Get away from there." Casey, growled grabbing the back of Chuck's t-shirt.

"Wait, wait, wait." Chuck kept typing as he was pulled up in the way. "There it's almost- DONE! There it's done." Chuck looked up proudly into Casey's growling face. Still suspended by his collar.

"It's what?"

"Done, um, it's finished, I fixed it, I kicked them out?"

"Kicked who out?"

"The people who were trying to break into the system, I kicked them out." Slowly Casey released the back of Chuck's shirt.

"Wait, right here, don't move." With the stink eye Casey was giving out Chuck wasn't moving an inch. Slowly Casey typed in a number on the phone, and lifted it to his ear.

"General, Are you experiencing any problems, or were the intruders locked out." He listened for a moment nodding. Then continued. "I see, problem solved then." And hung up the phone, turning once again the full force of his gaze on Chuck. "You will tell me what you did. _Exactly_. Right now."

After the explanation, mission operations were added to Chuck's training, and Chuck started observing more actively. And by actively observing Chuck meant spying and hacking to see what Casey was doing. Which was how Chuck found Sarah Walker. Sixteen years old and already a recruit. Her file was buried so deep, he only found her most basic information. He didn't even know where she was being kept for training, but he could send her a message when she was logged onto a computer. Wherever that was.

-Hi Sarah-

-What is this-

-It's an instant messenger-

-I know that. I meant who are you. Tell me before I call security.-

-Sorry! Don't do that please. My names Chuck. I'm like you I guess.-

-What do you mean like me? What's your last name. How do I know this isn't some psych test?-

-To answer your questions in order. I mean I'm young like you. I'm fifteen. I live alone except for my bodyguard or trainer or handler person, whatevs. His names Casey, I call him the Captain. My last name's Bartowski. And you don't know its not a test. But if it was you should keep typing to pass right?-

-User has logged off-

Damn. Thought Chuck, he'd been so close to- close to what? Meeting some one like him maybe. Some one he could talk to.

The next day when he and Morgan were playing video games his computer binged. It was Sarah.

-I looked you up-

"Dude, who messaged, you?"

"Um this girl, I met her at space camp."

"Oh, a girl. Is she hot."

"I met her at space camp what do you think?"

"That would be a no."

"Yup."

Morgan shrugged at that and went back to the game. Chuck focused on the message.

-What did you find about me?-

-You are who you say you are.-

-Yuppers, always am.-

-What do you want?- What did Chuck want.

-Nothing really. Just to talk. –

-Talk about what.-

-Whatevers. I mean we both have the same level of security clearance, so we can actually talk. I can't talk to my handler, he's crazy, and no way am I talking to my sister. She'd flip.-

- Wait I thought your sister was like you too. –

- She is sort of. She's under protection too, but if she knew half the stuff that went on around here she'd go crazy. –

-Why what goes on?-

-Well…

It turns out Sarah and Chuck did have a lot to talk about. If they could they usually logged on at nine o'clock every evening and talked for a few minutes about their days. Neither of them ever said where they were but it was nice to have some sympathy for a just few minutes at least.

* * *

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	3. Chapter 3

_It turns out Sarah and Chuck did have a lot to talk about. If they could they usually logged on at nine o'clock every evening and talked for a few minutes about their days. Neither of them ever said where they were but it was nice to have some sympathy for a just few minutes at least._

* * *

Suddenly it was summer. Sophomore year was over. Sarah was now a senior, and her Dad was still in jail. Ellie was still taking summer classes. Morgan had a job at the Buy More and Chuck was just along for the Captain's ride.

"Where are we going?" Chuck half asked half complained as they trudged through a forest, branches slapping him in the face.

"I am not going any where, you are."

"What does that mean." Chuck muttered, as they came into a clearing.

"Welcome to wilderness survival training." Casey growled, motioning towards the empty clearing with a sweep of his arm.

"Casey there's nothing there."

"Exactly, hand over your pack." Chuck did as asked. "Good, now start walking."

"What!"

"Start walking. I'm gonna set up camp here. You have half a day head start."

"Half a day for what?"

"Before I come after you, and if I catch you before noon tomorrow, you won't like the consequences."

Chuck went pale, gave one last longing look at his pack and took off running.

"I said walk you moron." Casey grumbled under his breath, "You're gonna wear yourself out, and be too easy to track."

The next day just after sunrise, Chuck was shoved forward into the clearing hands bound behind his back with twine, hair filled with leaves, and face covered in mud, scrapes and bruises. He didn't say anything when Casey shoved him down in front of the fire-pit, but away from the tent set up.

"What did I say yesterday?"

"Don't get caught before noon."

"And what time is it now."

"Six o'clock in the morning."

"What happens to spies who get caught." Casey asked, kneeling down in front of Chuck, and drawing out a knife. A very large knife. Chuck's eyes bugged out of his head, as it was waved under his nose, and he answered with a shake in his voice.

"They get um tortured, Sir, and then killed. Sir, please, I, there's really no need for torture today Sir."

"You deserve it, but no I'm not. Not today anyway. Although I like this new found respect, Sir this and Sir that." Casey patted Chuck on the cheek, before leaning back on his haunches and using the knife to carve a branch he had picked up earlier. "Maybe I should include a bit of torture if it gets you to cut the jokes." The knife cut through the branch like butter, and Chuck gulped. "Relax, Chucky, I said not today." Casey examined the spike he had made of the end of the branch, before driving it into the ground. "Instead, you're going to spend today tied to this pole, while I go look for food. If you're here when I get back, then I might consider the torture. Remember the sooner you get free the more of a head start you have."

"Head start for what." Chuck asked as he felt his hands twisted around the tree branch with more twine.

"Before noon tomorrow."

"Yes, sir!"

Chuck did manage to get free fairly quickly, and he took some of the supplies from the camp with him this time, but he still didn't manage after noon. Or the next day, or the day after that. Finally he got sneaky. He trapped Casey, left him there and then he went back to camp and slept. Which was how Casey found him at sunset, once he'd managed to get free. Sprawled out next to the dead fire, snoring to high heaven.

"Stupid kid, forgot to set traps around the camp." He muttered to himself and set about lighting the fire, and cooking dinner. If nothing else the smell of cooking would wake the kid up.

They stayed at the camp, in the "undisclosed location" as Chuck has taken to calling it for another two weeks. Chuck was surprised to find that home didn't have as much appeal as he thought it did, except for one thing. Sarah. That was almost the first thing he did, after a shower of course was to message her that he was back. The rest of the summer passed normally, though Mrs. Grimes keeps asking if Casey was treating him alright. Chuck told her he'd taken up Karate, to explain the bruises. It's not a total lie after all. He had taken up Karate, after all and Kung-fu, and Tae-Kwon-Do and a few others to boot.

Of course he mentioned the lie to Casey, and then Casey actually insisted on enrolling him in Karate classes, and then of course Morgan wanted to enroll too. And of course the only place good enough for Casey was all the way across town, and that adds another 45mins to his day everyday. His already busy days. Between the morning running, and training, and then his training that Casey doesn't know about (hacking), and the summer job he had, not at the Buy More, thank god, Morgan's told him horror stories, and the karate classes, Chuck's days were packed full. Chuck doesn't know what he's going to do during the school year, especially cause he's starting Calculus this year, and junior year is always hard with AP classes. Chuck had hoped that Morgan would quit Karate quickly, and then he could quit too, but Morgan despite annoying literally everyone at the dojo kept going with it. The only thing he could possibly drop once school started is his recreational extra training, secret from all but Sarah.

Chuck loves hacking, and it's his own way of keeping people safe. He can watch from afar, and sometimes in the deepest of programming sessions he thinks only in the tiniest part of his mind that he might someday find his Dad like this. Or maybe his Mom, though sometimes he thinks he would spit on her grave instead. But maybe, across some keyboard somewhere, or in the smallest piece of flashing data, or maybe in the background of a photo, he might see them.

Two weeks into the school year Chuck desperately wished he hadn't stopped hacking. It might have given then some warning. He sat covered in blood wrapped in a shock blanket in the back of an ambulance. Casey had gone out earlier for two seconds, just down the street to the panderia*, when the men had stormed the apartment. Chuck had come down the stairs from his shower after his morning workout, only to stare in shock at the two masked men in the kitchen. Chuck turned and ran right back up the stairs throwing everything he could get his hands on back at them. Chuck didn't know what the hell he was going to do! He hadn't even started weapons training yet. He managed to barricade himself in his room, although he only had a few seconds he could already hear them banging on the door. 'Can't get out the window too high up. Think Chuck, think'. There were only two of them he could do this.

First thing first, get Casey, with what, the panic button. The panic button sitting on his desk. Okay done, he needed a weapon, he had nothing, not even a friggin baseball bat. The desk lamp. No sooner than Chuck had grabbed it the door burst open, and Chuck was at them like a bat out of hell. Chuck smashed the lamp over the head of the first man into the room, and then tackled into the second, rolling down the stairs, grappling. Once at the bottom he sprang up, deliberately stomping on the man, hearing the crunch of bone, and then running towards the kitchen, and its knives.

"Don't move." Chuck froze as he heard the click of the gun, just as his fingers closed around a knife handle. "Turn around." Chuck closed his eyes and took a deep breath, he could do this. "I **said** turn around." The man growled. Chuck did, but he also threw the knife at the man. It missed, but it was enough and Chuck had kicked the gun out of the man's hand and tackled him. Right over the couch, and through the glass coffee table, shattering it all over the floor, and sending shards tinkling across the hardwood. Then Chuck's fingers were closing around something small and thin, and he was stabbing and stabbing.

Until the man stopped moving, and all Chuck could hear was his own ragged breathing. Then Chuck leaned back against the couch, blood dripping down his hands, and shaking, the body sitting across from him with a pen through its eye. That's how Casey found him a minute later, and the police a minute after that. Still sitting on the floor shaking, staring glassy eyed, at the now missing eyed corpse.

As Chuck sat in the ambulance the image of the dead men still hovering in the front of his mind Casey approached, pulling himself up to sit beside Chuck.

"You did good kid." Chuck swallowed before answering.

"Casey," Chuck motioned frantically with his still bloody hands, "I killed him. They were just there, and I shoved a pen through his eye!" Chuck spoke, voice getting more and more frantic. Arms continuing to wave. "Look at them, they're freaking covered in blood!" Chuck's voice dropped an octave, "I'm a murderer Casey." Chuck finished quietly. "I don't," Chuck stifled a sob, his voice raising again, "do that kinda stuff. You're supposed to do it instead! I just do my computers and stuff. I'm _tech support."_ Now Chuck was vaguely hysterical his voice doing rapid up and downs, and his eyes red.

"Enough." Casey spoke seriously in his gravely voice, grabbing Chuck's hands firmly to stop them trembling and waving. "You're not supposed to do anything, you're not tech support, you're sixteen, and I am supposed to take care of stuff like this, but like I said, I can't watch you all the time kid, and that's what you're training for."

"I'm not-"

"Shut it Bartowski. You did exactly as your training said. Those people would have killed you. If you hadn't did what you did you'd be on your way to being tortured now, so just shut up about feeling guilty and freaking out. You did what you had to. You hear me?" Chuck nodded once feebly. "Good, now come on we have to get you to a safe house somewhere."

"Wait, Casey what about my sister?"

"She's already on her way there."

"Does she know? um, about…" Chuck gestured back toward the house, to indicate what had just happened.

"No."

"Good, can we…"

"I won't say a word kid. Now come one, lets get you out of here and cleaned up." Chuck nodded and with Casey's arm around his shoulders, headed toward a black faceless government car.

A week later once the all clear was set up and they had settled into a new apartment Casey drove Chuck to his karate lesson, except instead of driving to the dojo Casey drove them to what looked like an abandoned warehouse.

"Casey, what's going on?"

"Karate's only once a week now kid, Now hurry up." Casey jerked his head toward the warehouse.

Casey opened a side door with a pass code, and Chuck followed him inside. It certainly wasn't an abandoned warehouse. Chuck stared around in wonder at what looked like a cross between a dojo and a giant weapons locker. Guns of every shape and size sat on racks from floor to ceiling, and Chuck though he saw some grenades in a corner. Other hand held weapons, and was that a crossbow? Surrounded a mat sitting in the center of the floor.

"Close your mouth kid, you look like an imbecile." Chuck shook himself out of his stupor and followed Casey further into the room. Resisting the urge to snap back. Casey wasn't his guardian slash sudo-uncle right now, this was a place for fighting and so Casey was currently his teacher. You didn't sass your sensei. "Welcome to the CIA regional training facility, usual rules about keeping your trap shut about this place and everything you see apply here." Casey continued snatching a Bo up from a rack. "This place is for everybody operating in Southern California so we won't often be alone here. You disturb a single one of the agents and," the Bo suddenly snapped to his throat, "I'll cut your tongue out. We clear?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Good." And Casey tossed Chuck the Bo. "Let's get you started on weapons training." Chuck felt like grinning like a lunatic and cringing in fear at the same time.

He even thought he'd done a good job hiding the bruises from his first training session, as Mrs. Grimes didn't even ask him about them, except a week later social services showed up at their front door. Apparently the bruises and his week spent in the "hospital" for "appendicitis" when Chuck was really hiding at a safe house, was too suspicious a coincidence to pass.

"Casey, we have guests." Chuck hollered back up into the apartment, although he knew Casey was in the kitchen. That was code for potential hostiles, and if Chuck could direct their attention in the wrong direction all the better. Chuck's own hand was drifting toward the knife he kept in the small of his back at all times now. Like he was really going to believe these people were from social services. Chuck also locked the deadbolt behind them, slipping the key into his pocket. No need for them to have an escape route.

"Have a seat, My uncle will be downstairs in a minute." Chuck motioned them toward the couch facing away from the kitchen, which Casey emerged from a second later gun drawn, walking on silent feet.

"Don't move!" Casey's deep voice growled, accompanied by the click of a safety, causing the man and the woman on the couch to freeze.

"Look Mister, we don't want any trouble." The woman began, turning in her seat, but Casey cut her off.

"Shut up." Casey ordered moving around in front of them. "Stand up, slowly, hands where I can see them." Casey motioned with the butt of his gun. "Four feet apart from each other. Come on. Good. Chuck search 'em." Chuck did as asked, only finding a CPS badge in each pocket. Looking worn like real badges did.

"Casey." Chuck gulped, standing back and handing the badges over. "I think they're legit." Casey looked them over briefly, before tossing them aside.

"Who sent you?"

It was the man who spoke up this time.

"Look I swear we really are from Social Services. Sir, if you could just put the gun down, we can work this out. We won't be taking your nephew away from you Sir."

"That's nice, but your going to sit tight and not doing anything stupid or heroic until I verify that. Chuck?"

"On it Sir." Chuck replied already walking toward the office to call some people. A minute later he came back into the living room.

"They're legit Casey. Mrs. Grimes thought I was in the _'hospital'_ last week cause you put me there, and called them. Some one screwed up and didn't intercept them." Privately Chuck thought if he had done a better job hacking this wouldn't have happened either, but he just didn't have the time. Casey nodded and turned back towards the social workers.

"Congratulations, you two just managed to wander into a joint NSA and CIA safe house." He lowered his gun and tossed his badge towards them. "Captain John Casey at your service." The two Social workers just stared at him.

"Well now that we have that all cleared up, does anybody want anything to drink while Casey calls some people to get this all straightened out?" Chuck chirped, clapping his hands together, and plastering his I'm a completely innocent dorky kid who couldn't possibly hurt a fly you should trust me smile across his face. "By the way I got these bruises from assassins who tried to kill me not my _Uncle._"

"Chuck?"

"Yeah, Casey?"

"Shut. _Up_."

"Yes, Sir."

Half an hour later, and another dozen phone calls, some Colonel or another had showed up in a rather suspicious looking car with the Social workers boss and they had all been shipped away to get things cleared up. Chuck and Casey were packing things up, as they had to move.

_Again_.

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* A panderia is a mexican/latin american bakery. Echo park is littered with them. They are delicious.

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	4. Chapter 4

_Half an hour later, and another dozen phone calls, some Colonel or another had showed up in a rather suspicious looking car with the Social workers boss and they had all been shipped away to get things cleared up. Chuck and Casey were packing things up, as they had to move._

**_Again._**

* * *

The rest of junior year went normally. It was still stressful, but the normal kind of stressful. Chuck even managed to talk Casey into getting a week off and driving him and Ellie up to NorCal to take a look at colleges he'd gotten mailers from. It was nice to spend a week with his sister.

Now in her second year of college, Ellie had joined a pre-med sorority, an under preforming youth tutoring program, a Dance group, gotten herself elected as Hedrick Hall Fifth Floor president, had managed to take one upper-division course as she was slightly ahead due to summer classes, and gotten herself a place at the hospital volunteer program, something very rare for a second year. She gushed about all of it. Chuck was only too happy to listen to her gush for all six hours of the car ride up to the Bay Area. Casey was not, and Chuck had thought for a while he was going to crack the steering wheel he was gripping it so hard.

Earlier that year, after the attack at the apartment, Ellie had been really freaked out about being hustled to the safe house, and Chuck had had to talk her down from frantic plans for her to take him and immediately flee the country, or at the very least have him move in with her. It had taken Chuck about an hour but finally he'd convinced her of the merits of their original plan. After all they were here and safe weren't they, and the CIA was fixing the leak as they spoke. They masked men hadn't even been looking for him, just breaking into the safe house to look for information. Chuck completely missed the irony that a year ago he would have jumped on the opportunity to go back to living with his sister, and couldn't figure out why Casey had been silently laughing at him.

All ironies aside, it was on that car trip that Chuck fell in love with Stanford. He'd liked Berkeley too, but they had such a long history of government science-partnership, starting with the atomic bomb, that Chuck liked Stanford better. It wasn't that Chuck didn't eventually want to work for the government, after all he saw what important work they did, but for college a little normality would be nice, just a little he didn't want to stop completely. Distance from SoCal would be good too, for personal and security reasons. And Stanford, well, Stanford had taken one look at his original projects and his tragic back story and was waving money in his face. Berkeley was too big, they saw a dozen sob stories a day, they couldn't wave money at all of them. From that day forward Chuck saw it as his goal to get into Stanford.

In May, he got a message from Sarah that shocked him. She wanted him to come for graduation. She was graduating, and pretty much leaving for intensive training the second after graduation. Her note had rambled on after that, how she knew it was against protocol, and they weren't ever supposed to meet face to face, but she knew she might never get to see him after that, or even talk to him depending on where she went, and this was her absolute last chance. It was uncharacteristically odd of her to sound nervous like that, but Chuck understood what a huge risk she was taking making the offer, and he too had to put a lot of thought into going to see her.

Finally he agreed. He really didn't think it was a trap, and he really did want to see her. When he had messaged her back, she had replied almost immediately, giving a time and a place. Lastly she had told him with a dire warning to never repeat it to anybody that where she lived in San Diego (so close!) she went by Jenny Burton.

It had taken some arranging but Chuck had managed to escape his surveillance for the day and night it would take him to get to San Diego and attend the graduation. Chuck had set it up to stay at Morgan's house, for a beginning of summer sleep-over celebration slash gaming marathon. Morgan was only too happy to lie for him if it was for a girl; Morgan considered getting geeks like them laid a noble cause. Not that Chuck was even considering getting laid, it was just easier to let Morgan assume. It bothered him a little how little it bothered him to lie to Morgan about that but he shoved it off. This was spy stuff, like Casey said it was always okay to lie about spy stuff, just not about other things.

Then Chuck had done a little recreational hacking, reassigning Casey to another project the night of the 'sleep-over' and then stopped the order to the other random agent assigned to watch him that night. That was the hard part, the next part was easy, buying an Amtrak ticket to San Diego on a fake credit card. The last part was the hardest, trying to figure out what Sarah would want for a graduation present.

Finally Chuck had settled on an all-purpose good quality utility knife, with a good balance so it could be thrown too. Although she didn't mention it all that much, Sarah had let slip once or twice her preference for knives. Chuck just hoped she could take it with her, he knew she would have to give up a lot when she left.

Finally the morning of the visit came, and Chuck had slipped easily out of the house duffel over his shoulder, in the pre-dawn, Casey having already left for his mission, to the bus station and then to Union Station. Where he caught the earliest train to San Diego

Sarah had told him to look for a yellow VW convertible at the San Diego train station, and he had found it immediately. It hadn't been hard to find, and in the front seat was a completely ordinary looking girl. She had ruffled stiff straw blond hair cut in angular bangs around her face and ending at her shoulders. A rather cute straight nose and a lovely mouth marred by braces. Her clothes were a bit dorky, her face wasn't the clearest, and she looked a bit nervous. Could this really be her? Chuck approached and cleared his throat.

"I have a very strict gun control policy."

"If there's a gun around, I want to be in control of it." The girl replied and then she smiled at him. Chuck felt his heart speed up. He took back what he said about looking ordinary. That was the prettiest smile he'd ever seen. This was definitely Sarah or rather for the next twenty-four hours Jenny.

"You must be Chuck or rather Charlie for today"

"And you must be Sarah or rather Jenny. I told you Clint Eastwood quotes made cool pass phrases."

"Right," Sarah scoffed, "I still like Shakespeare better." She countered unlocking the car door for Chuck to get in.

"Nah, Shakespeare's too well known. What if I'd just been a random Shakespeare fan?"

"Wearing a Men In Black t-shirt?"

"You never know. Besides this shirt's hilariously ironic when I wear it, and don't worry I brought something to change into for this afternoon. I thought Star Wars would be more appropriate for such a momentous occasion." Chuck grinned his dorky, you love me cause I'm silly grin at her. Sarah giggled.

"Please tell me your joking Charlie, or I'll make you wear the gown instead."

"What, and mar the beauty that is Star Wars!" Chuck howled in mock horror, "Which you still haven't seen by the way."

"Pssh, I could beat your butt with a light sword thing anyway. You told me your uncle said you were terrible with swords."

"It's a light-saber Jenny. A _saber_ not a sword thing. You wound me, have a taught you nothing young grasshopper?"

They teased each other all the way back to Jenny's motel room, where she'd been staying since her Dad was arrested. They changed into nicer clothes there. Chuck into slacks and a shirt from his Dad, that he normally kept shoved into a box at the back of his closet. He'd furnished the whole thing with a terrible pair of knock off Ray-Bans. Sarah had chosen a loose polyester sundress of a pastel blue with a yellow flower pattern on it. Her crinkly hair she pulled back in a barrette. The gown and the mortar board had been dumped across the back seat of the car.

They ate lunch on the way to the ceremony at a small window only burger place off the freeway. Where the old man flipping burgers in the back, hollered that Jenny could do better than that shmuck, his nephew was much better after all. Sarah had laughed, and told him he'd better add extra fries for that comment. They had eaten the greasy mess of lunch at one of the picnic tables outside the burger place in the mild June weather.

Chuck had pulled a smooth one and handed over the knife he had gotten her in lieu of a plastic one. Chuck knew he had chosen well when he got another one of her sweet smiles, and a quite, "Thanks Charlie."

Sarah had paused once they pulled into the high school parking lot, watching all the people walking past.

"You know, this was the longest time I even spent at a place with my Dad?"

"Does that make you want to stay?"

"No, it makes me want to forget."

"Then think of this as a beginning. Tomorrow you're going to be Save the World Sarah, just a couple more hours of Just Jenny. Who hangs out with that Chump Charlie from the Valley. We can think of it as our first mission?"

"Okay."

"Okay, what?"

"Okay Chump Charlie?"

"Better, Just Jenny. Come on let's go knock 'em dead."

Chuck sat in the stands and clapped and hollered loudly when Jenny Burton was called, and after the ceremony made Sarah stand still for a bunch of silly pictures, a bunch by herself, one or two with other people who seemed to be in a post graduation take a ridiculous amount of pictures frantic nostalgia mood, and even some of just the two of them when a stranger offered to take a photo.

Then there had been the post graduation dance, and then the after party. Neither Chuck or Sarah had cared overly much for either of those though they were fun. They had mostly spent the time in a corner talking and laughing. There had been a bit of a hazy hour around one in the morning with dancing, and bad very loud singing. Around five in the morning they had found a twenty-four hour drug store that did photos and gotten the photos developed by bribing the cashier to open the photo counter and do it for them.

At six in the morning they sat at a greasy spoon, outside the train station eating pancakes and looking the photos over, squished in one side of the booth. Sarah still with her mortarboard on, and Chuck's jacket over her shoulders.

"Here," Chuck handed over one of the photos. "You should keep this one." It was one of the two of them, with their arms wrapped around each other. "I know you might not be able to keep it, but I have a duplicate of it in case it gets destroyed. Just so you can know, it's out there somewhere."

"Thank you Chuck."

And then Sarah kissed him, and Chuck well he kissed her back. When the pulled apart, they sat foreheads touching until Chuck spoke quietly.

"Sarah we can't. You're leaving and I'm, well I'm not, not yet at least."

"I know, but I wish we could, and well I wanted my first kiss to be with you."

"I- with me really? But I'm just Chuck, I'm not some James Bond. I'm just Chuck from Burbank. I like video games too much, and I eat too many cheese balls."

"Yeah, but I know you, Chuck. Your nice and your sweet, and you love your sister, and your best friend, and even Captain Casey, at least sometimes, and your strong too, you do what you have to." They both paused remembering Chuck's first kill. Something Sarah hadn't done yet. "And you know me, and you know about my Dad, and how I'm going to be Sarah, and how I wasn't really Jenny. And that some James Bond, wouldn't. He wouldn't know me, I wouldn't let him. But I know you and you know me, and so I kissed you."

"Hey Sarah?" Chuck spoke softly, intertwining their fingers. "Do you think that someday, maybe someday, I'll be Captain Carmichael or something and you'll be Agent Walker and we can go on missions and have adventures together? Save the world?"

"Yeah, Chuck, I think we can."

They sat there, Chuck with his arm around Sarah's shoulders. Sarah curled up against his side, in silence, watching the morning sun creep up through the window, until Chuck's train came.

They didn't kiss then, just a simple hug, but it was tight and it was long.

"Good luck, Agent Walker."

"Good luck, Chuck. Stay cool Senior year alright?"

"Will do."

"And if you felt up to it, I wouldn't mind an electronic eye in the sky checking in every once in a while."

"Always, Sarah."

Chuck's eyes were dry by the time he got back to L.A. and he managed to paste a smile on his face to go talk to Morgan, who was sure to want juicy details.

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